Epistemic Processing When Adolescents Read Online: A Verbal Protocol Analysis of More and Less Successful Online Readers

Abstract

This study examines how the beliefs that adolescent readers hold about knowledge and knowing are activated during online reading. The research questions center on the pattern of these readers’ epistemic processes through which more or less productive learning occurs. High school students performed a critical online reading task on a controversial topic; 10 more successful readers and 10 less successful readers were then selected based on their topic knowledge gain and the quality of the questions that they constructed in response to their online reading. The epistemic processes of these two groups’ 20 readers were inferred from their concurrent verbal reports. Verbal reports were coded and classified qualitatively until concrete types of epistemic processing were recognized; the coded data were then quantified for statistical group comparisons to identify and interpret emerging patterns. The results indicated that more successful online readers tended to engage in higher order epistemic processes when judging information sources, monitoring their knowing processes, and regulating their alternative knowledge‐seeking actions, whereas the epistemic actions of their less successful counterparts were more often disconnected and tended to function at a surface level. Cross‐categorical associations were found among epistemic judgment, monitoring, and regulation, suggesting that epistemic processes operate interactively. Implications of the study's results are discussed in relation to literacy research and practice.

Investigating professed and enacted epistemic beliefs about the uncertainty of scientific knowledge when students evaluate scientific controversies

“…Given that study participants were university students, they possibly possessed sufficient reading skills to process the textual information on a semantic level. Prior research drawing on more heterogeneous samples, however, indicates that less skilled readers who process textual information on a surface level do not show the same levels of epistemic understanding when it comes to reading controversial information (Cho et al 2018). Besides, gaze replay duration was positively correlated with EUB in our study.…”

“…Likewise, with respect to EUB, several studies also have provided evidence for a positive relation to individuals' performance in terms of online learning regarding a socio-scientific issue (Cho et al 2018), self-regulation strategies with respect to academic reading (Richter and Schmid 2010), and science learning strategies (Lee et al 2016). Moreover, Mason et al (2010a) directly investigated the interplay of science-related PUB and EUB in 8th grade students conducting a web search on a controversial scientific topic.…”

How Good Is This Page? Benefits and Limits of Prompting on Adolescents’ Evaluation of Web Information Quality

“…The interview format used in experiment 2 may have prompted both a deeper processing of the materials and increased verbalization, because students could concentrate on the evaluation of texts, not on writing. Indeed, research has suggested that the oral modality can be more useful than the written modality in fostering student performance on exams (Huxham et al., ) and exploring students’ epistemic processing of online texts (Cho, Woodward, & Li, ). In our study, it is not possible to disentangle the role of oral modality from other variables, such as students’ age and school level.…”

Teaching Sourcing in Upper Secondary School: A Comprehensive Sourcing Intervention With Follow‐Up Data

“…Students at different educational levels often disregard source information and pay attention only to the content when reading to comprehend and learn from diverse textual resources (Barzilai et al., ; Bråten, Strømsø, & Andreassen, ; Brem, Russell, & Weems, ; Britt & Aglinskas, ; Kiili, Laurinen, & Marttunen, ; VanSledright & Kelly, ; Wineburg, ). At the same time, correlational work has indicated that sourcing is linked to comprehension and learning outcomes (Anmarkrud, Bråten, & Strømsø, ; Barzilai & Eshet‐Alkalai, ; Bråten, Strømsø, & Britt, ; Cho, Woodward, & Li, , ; Goldman, Braasch, Wiley, Graesser, & Brodowinska, ; Strømsø, Bråten, & Britt, ; Wiley et al., ). As a consequence, interventions to promote students' sourcing when working with multiple information resources have become an increasingly important agenda for reading research during the last two decades (for recent reviews, see Brante & Strømsø, ; Bråten, Stadtler, & Salmerón, ).…”